Marketing Communications

January 07, 2009

Take this quiz on which font best represents you. PBS aired a documentary on the Helvetica font last night on its Independent Lens program. It was a pretty interesting show on why marketers love the popular sans serif font ...

October 10, 2008

KFC is running a great promo right now called the "$10 Challenge." You may have seen the television commercial (click here for the video).

Excerpt from their site:

"KFC challenges Americans to see if they can create a family meal for less than $10. With Colonel Sanders’ secret herbs and spices, KFC knows families can’t recreate this delicious meal for any price. For busy families on a budget, KFC’s 7-Piece Value Meal is the only value offer that is a real family meal for less than $10 as it includes chicken, a side and biscuits for $9.99."

Kudos to KFC. They make great fried chicken and understand the art and science (math?) of persuasion.

June 26, 2008

I think LinkedIn is a pretty useful tool. LinkedIn basically links professionals to other professionals and keeps you connected with minimal effort. There’s a cool feature in LinkedIn that helps you learn a ton about yourself.

Cloud storage startup Parascale knows simple is better. Its FAQ page is clean and straightforward. Interesting to note that Google and PayPal were seed investors in this endeavor. UPDATE: Apparently, they did not get money from Google and Paypal. Wish they would be clear ... UPDATE #2: They are clear. I didn't mean for the attention to go to the investors. I brought up Parascale because they're in a hot space, appear to understand the power of simple, snagged an exec from NetApp, and future looks very promising. Keep an eye out for these guys ...

June 04, 2008

Below is an actual paragraph (yes, a single paragraph) taken from the page of a storage startup. Believe it or not, the page is headlined "Our Advantages." It has just about everything that can be cruel to read. Bad grammar. Loaded with superlatives. Laden with industry jargon and buzzwords. Run-on sentences. Acronym not spelled out with first use. Capitalizing what shouldn't be capitalized. Landmark ease of management?

This company raised $6M last quarter and their site lists no less than eight (8) executives - including a "Senior Vice President" of Marketing no less. They have money and lots of executives. Meaning, they probably didn't outsource their content to eLance or skip the editing process.

May 10, 2008

Let me show you how powerful words can be when coupled with some good pictures or images. I'll illustrate how visuals can enhance crisp ideas or thoughts. Below is a "TOP 10" list containing some cardinal rules of startup growth and marketing. We're going very "high level" here folks so put on your oxygen masks. (Click on each photo to enlarge it.)

Rule #1 -- Hire smart people. When assessing intelligence, do not overthink. Given enough opportunities, dumb people usually reveal themselves to you. Just be attentive.

Rule #2 -- Always be very CLEAR in your messaging. It's not that hard. Bad messaging usually is a result of making too many compromises to please too many people. It's usually not stupidity although ...

March 21, 2008

Color is important to get right but most companies pay little attention to it. Understanding color is a “soft” skill and tech companies want little to do with that kind of stuff. Yeah, I know that nurses wear a soft blue or pink garment so that tense patients can relax more but what does color have to do with our ability to market or sell? Give me the major league issues to go and brilliantly conquer! Well, if you’ve just acknowledged the fact that color does have a concrete impact on human beings (albeit in a hospital), you’ve pretty much just answered your own question. Customers and patients are people. Hence, color does matter.